Picking Up on Where I Left Off Yesterday

Back to the question, 'Okay.  So what do I do [after all the questioning and raising of doubts]?'

The question itself betrays how steeped we are in our cultural assumptions.  Because our culture evolved as a culture of time (read history) rather than a culture of place, we have evolved as a group of human doings as opposed to a culture of human beings.  The emphasis in our world view has been chronological:  this happened, then is happened, then this, etc.  So, as time become fuller and became more completely the lens through which we viewed life and our selves, life for us became a series of doings.  Our identities became enmeshed with what we were able to do or not do (a differently-abled person is thus considered dis-abled, identified by what they are unable to do).  Our culture became hierarchical:  at the bottom were those who had the most constraints on their doings, while those on top had the least constraints on what they could do.  Above that was God who could (and did) do everything and ultimately would undo all our doings when we died.

We so couldn't stand the notion of being undone by death (which also meant our unbeing), that we did two things:  we created a life that comes after this one ends, a life in which all doings were done and in which we were finally able to just be); and we created history:  historic events and heroes.  If, in our lives, we were able to insinuate ourselves into history, be part of an historic event, be heroic enough in our doings as to be remembered by others, we were able to escape (in our minds, at least) the notion that God could undo us at death.

When we ask a question like, 'Now that I know all this, what do I do next,' we're falling prey to the belief that life needs us to do something, to take action, to make a mark, to make a difference.

People who did not create cultures based on time, but rather, built their lives based on place, seem to have the reality that the appropriate action, the action that is needed, evolves from their beingness, their being part of the place in which they and their culture exists.  When we ask, What do we need to do, we're not trusting that the questioning which we are about, the questioning which washes away layer upon layer of wrong assumptions and divisions between our own lives and the life that is the planet upon which we live and upon which we are reliant for our very existence.  We are not trusting that this process will, in and of itself, beget the appropriate doing, if doing is what is needed.

My word to you is this, trust the doubt.